| Director: | Walter Grauman |
| Starring: | Jim Hutton Leslie Nielsen Ed Asner Jessica Walter Jo Ann Pflug Míriam Colón Robert J. Wilke William Elliott Carmen Mathews |
| Music: | Robert Drasnin |
| Company: | Paisano Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television |
| Network: | NBC |
| Runtime: | 95 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
They Call It Murder is a 1971 American television film directed by Walter Grauman and starring Jim Hutton.
They Call It Murder is a two-hour television film produced by Paisano Productions in association with 20th Century Fox. It was a pilot for a proposed TV movie series based on characters created by Erle Stanley Gardner, who edited the script by Sam Rolfe. Walter Grauman directed; Cornwell Jackson was executive producer. The film is loosely based on Gardner's 1939 novel, The D.A. Draws a Circle.[1]
The film went into production in 1969 and was completed February 9, 1970.[2] Jim Hutton stars as Doug Selby, district attorney of a small town outside Los Angeles.[3]
They Call It Murder was first presented December 17, 1971, on NBC.[2] Gardner had died by the time the film finally was given its world premiere. Paisano Productions had worked to launch a Doug Selby series for six years, while its series Perry Mason was in its prime.[4] No series materialized, and this TV movie marks Selby's sole screen adaptation.[1]